Chapter 16: Between Clara and Yvette
The sound of the door opening, followed a by a sudden thud and the rustle of fabric as a familiar weight settled on the edge of the bed woke me up from my sleep. There was only one person that could be able to do all at once, Yvette.
A moment later, another softer thud which I suspected was a bag being dropped on the couch sounded along with another familiar scent. That was Clara. Her scent reminded me of the rain.
"Model student," Yvette began. "You should have told me you were going to skip class. I would have come with you."
"And be the reason your grades fall again? Not a chance." I replied to her as I sat upright on the bed.
"But I hate going to school so much it's actually heartbreaking." She cried.
"At least today was better than the other days." Clara said softly.
"Better how? Isabella wasn't there with me." Yvette grumbled making Clara laugh.
Yvette nudged me with her elbow, a gesture of friendly pressure. "Isabella Marquez, you better tell me what happened today. I heard some students gossiping about how they saw you and Mateo arguing after you came back from the interrogation room. And then there's Mateo, oh don't worry, I shut down the gossiping kids. But anyways, back to Mateo. He looked like he wanted to fillet me and serve me up for dinner when I tried to talk to him at lunch. And he only looks that way when it's related to you. What the hell happened?"
My mind, still sluggish from sleep and the lingering emotional fallout, struggled to catch up. The memory of Mateo's furious, wounded gaze flooded back, sharper now, more insistent. Then came Alexander's face, the cold fury in his eyes, the way he'd pulled me away from the detective.
"He didn't look like that Yvette." Clara said gently. "He looked angry and hurt."
Yvette scoffed, rolling her eyes dramatically. "Hurt? Clara, please. He was growling like a wounded badger that had just been told his meticulously organized life was about to be trampled by a stampede of rogue elephants..."
Where the hell did she even get this from?
"...And honestly, that's not a very sexy look for Mateo, even for him. Seriously, Isa, what happened? What did he do this time? And don't even think about lying to me. Your aura is depressed and gray." Yvette said making me laugh again.
Gathering my scattered thoughts, I began to recount, piecing everything that had happened earlier. I told them about Mateo's cold reaction to the intertwined hands, our blazing argument afterwards in the hallway. I described his possessiveness, his inability to understand my terror, his fixation on Alexander, his dismissal of my fear and just...yes, I told them everything because I never hid things from them. It's how we were.
As I spoke, I watched their reactions. Clara's face was etched with sympathy, her understanding of everything evident on her face.
Yvette, on the other hand, seemed torn between outrage at Mateo's behavior and an assessment of its fallout.
When I finally finished, the silence in the room was heavy, punctuated only by the faint blinking of the fairy lights.
Clara was the first to break it. "Oh, Isabella…" she said, her voice soft with concern. "I know you're going through a lot, and Mateo's reaction was… extreme. But maybe… maybe you overreacted a little? He was in the right to feel self-conscious, seeing you come out with Alexander like that, especially after the interrogation. And, you know, he's your boyfriend. He's worried sick."
vette, however, let out a snort that was pure Yvette. "Are you kidding me, Clara? 'Self-conscious'? He was practically vibrating with possessive rage. And 'worried sick'? He was offended that Isabella, his possession, his project, might be getting attention from someone else, someone he perceives as a 'rival' for her attention. He's not projecting his worries onto Isabella; he's projecting his own insecurities and his outdated, patriarchal beliefs about control and ownership onto her. He wants Isabella to be this perfect, dependent girlfriend who only needs him, and when she shows independence and when she doesn't, he lashes out."
Clara frowned. "But Isabella wasn't in the right. There was nothing Mateo could do. He wasn't in the interogating room with them. There was no way for him to know what had gone on in there."
"Nah." Yvette said with a shake of her head. "I get that Isabella wasn't a hundred percent right about this but let's not paint Mateo like he's in the right either. Why was he so focused on them holding hands when she was obviously shaken by what happened in there? And why the fuck did he wait for Alex to tell him to go after her before he did? That's not boyfriend behaviour right there. And when they finally got a chance to speak he turned things on her? That's not done. "
At least I wasn't the only one who saw things like that. But one thing stood out yo me.
"Since when is Alexander just Alex?" Clara asked her with a frown, asking the question I had in mind.
Due to the rivalry between me and Alexander, my friends opted to calling him Alexander and nit Alex because that would show that we were on friendly terms with him but Yvette referred to him as Alex?
"Um...we are talking about Mateo right now and bit Alexander." Yvette replied but that wasn't enough reason.
"Are you friends with him?" I asked her.
"Me?" She scoffed. "No. I can't be friends with my best friend's enemy." She replied as she twirled her pink tinted hair in her hand.
"If you are not friends then what is it?" I asked her.
"I may have started seeing Michael?" She asked as a blush made its way to her cheeks.
I gasped in shock. "You sneak up little bitch. And you pretended like you were not interested in anyone when I asked you."
"It's nothing serious."
"Nothing serious my ass." I replied with a laugh.
Micheal was Alexander's best friend and had been Yvette's crush for years.
"So...can we go back to Mateo now?" She asked us.